I'm afraid the Scandinavian lion, while mild and tamed at home, still shows his--or should say her--paws and teeth...

''We want to be relevant''

Who's Afraid of Norway?By MATTHEW BRZEZINSKI

Anyone who says America's European allies have no stomach for action has never flown with Norway's defense minister, Kristin Krohn Devold. I might give her this compliment, if only the helicopter we're in weren't plummeting backward.

Moments later, we are racing at treetop level toward a Norwegian military base, from which a contingent of mine-clearing troops is about to be dispatched to Iraq, and Devold encourages her pilots to show me what they can do. The chopper banks wildly, veering to the right and left, so that in one instant I am looking straight down at the ground and, in the next, straight up at the sky. The trees are never more than a few yards beneath us.

In military jargon, this form of flying is known as terrain masking, and it is extremely dangerous because the margin for pilot error is measured in a few feet. The tactic is used in hostile territory to fly below radar and avoid enemy fire.

That the Royal Norwegian Air Force -- 36 helicopters, 57 F-16's and a half-dozen C-130 cargo planes -- is even practicing offensive maneuvers with the defense minister on board says a lot about the aspirations of both this tiny nation and its ambitious defense chief. After all, Norway has a population no bigger than those of Brooklyn and Queens put together; its 20,000 soldiers couldn't fill the ranks of the New York City Police Department.

So why do top Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, spend so much time conferring with Devold, praising her initiatives and quietly promoting her candidacy to take over the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?

As it happens, small nations like Norway have been assuming disproportionately large roles in global affairs since 9/11, one of the many unexpected consequences of the new new world order. ''During the cold war, when there was a bipolar massing of vast military establishments, the contribution of small nations was negligible,'' explains Loren Thompson, a military observer at the Lexington Institute in Washington. ''But today the nature of the threat is so different and diffuse that a country with special competencies or positioning can have huge leverage.''

Put more simply, size doesn't matter as much in today's localized and technologically driven armed conflicts. What does matter is speed and the ability to bring narrowly defined skills to the front lines. And this is where small countries like Norway or the Netherlands or future NATO members like Latvia come into the geopolitical picture. The evolving nature of conflict presents opportunities for Davids to fight alongside Goliaths, if they bring the right slingshot.

Devold was among the first Europeans to spot this trend, and the openings it presents to motivated, if marginal, powers. ''We want to be relevant,'' she declares, as our chopper swoops over a wheat field, startling a herd of cows.

To make Norway as attractive a Pentagon partner as possible, Devold has spent heavily and cut radically; hence her insistence that our airborne taxi do double duty as a tactical training exercise to save fuel and pilot time. ''We have some of the best pilots,'' she shouts appreciatively over the roar of the chopper's turbocharged engines. It's an American-made Bell 412, a modern version of the venerable Huey popularized during the Vietnam War. I nod weakly, trying not to encourage any further demonstrations of the craft's maneuverability. As if on cue, the pilots oblige us with a series of harrowing missile-avoidance moves known as tail-ons, during which the chopper's airframe shudders violently and we find ourselves suddenly falling -- actually falling -- backward.

The civilian official next to me has turned green. Devold, meanwhile, gazes dreamily out the window, her paratrooper boots propped leisurely on the chopper's deck, a huge smile on her face.

'Would it not make more sense to bring all the nations together that are victims of this world-wide industrial revolution with its concomitant abuses inflicted on the poor of the world to stand against the trans-nationals? Why after three major industrial revolutions in England, Europe, and America do we stand by and let the trans-nationals tell us that these ?underdeveloped

Hey Bader, remember who said this? Well, I bumped into it and put it in my webpage after the stories. The lion--a master of deceit--uses the mask, which is the lie. Nevertheless, when the little people read the stories, they recognize it at once...

"If we simplified the LION down to a con-man, he can be disarmed by public exposure to his tricks- thus people are getting the awareness and enlightenment you and I know society needs. It is not idealistic to do this, but merely practical. There are identifiable systems, ideologies, policies, and identifiable persons and identifiable organizations and institutions etc that make up, build/sustain the LION. They are in abundance being exposed on the net. We can't stop at the animals farm stage and expect the LION to go away. We have to move on and expose the who, how and what that makes up the LION."

We Don't Need No Education (Sung to the tune of "Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2" by Pink Floyd) Guest song parody by Mark Hoolihan

(instrumental intro) We can't get no education. Funding's Republican controlled. No less than fifty in the classroom. Teachers blamed, but can't control. Hey teachers, make a miracle! All in all. vouchers put poor schools more in the hole. All in all, vouchers put poor kids more in the hole

We can't get no education. Conservatives they have control. No evolution in our textbooks. But middle class kids get to go. Hey Dubya, where'd compassion go? All in all, vouchers put poor schools more in the hole. All in all, vouchers put poor kids more in the hole.

Spoken: Wrong! Do it again. If you don't improve scores, you can't have any funding. How can you have any funding if you don't improve scores ? Yes you, in the Oval Office. Explain, laddy.

Schools, Students Struggle in Hard Times By STEVE GIEGERICH, AP Education Writer

LAWRENCE, Kan. - In the days before the start of his senior year, Brandon Cox joined hundreds of other University of Kansas students in a bid for something vital to continuing his education: a job.

The crowd filling out applications at a campus job fair last week was just one sign of the times as Kansas and other public universities raise tuition this fall by percentages that often hit the double digits.

Students attending four-year public colleges and universities in 49 of the 50 states will feel the pinch of tuition hikes ranging from 1.7 percent in Montana to 39 percent in Arizona. Only Mississippi kept tuition at 2002-03 levels.

And while most of the roughly 6 million students at public, four-year colleges will be paying more, they'll be getting less in the way of services as schools struggle with budget cuts.

Students like Cox, an in-state philosophy major paying his own way through college, have been particularly hard-hit. He is taking 20 credit hours per semester and expects his tuition to rise by $800 this year.

"It's almost come to the point of starvation a few times, but I've always managed to find something," said Cox. "The plasma center will pay you $20 a pint ? if you're willing to bleed for two hours."

Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, said the tuition hikes were part of a pattern that began when governments gradually began shifting the burden of funding education to students and their parents in the late 1970s.

With family wealth supporting students at the high end of the economic spectrum, and increased financial aid assisting those at the lower end, Nassirian said students from middle-class backgrounds have borne the weight of cost increases.

"For the middle class, the basic, implicit social contract is beginning to fray," Nassirian said.

"The social contract, among other things, implied that in exchange for state taxes that they would have access to solid, quality higher education options. And they were guaranteed it would be affordable. And that affordability issue is where the middle class is getting nailed."

The increasing costs are evident in student loans: Sallie Mae, the country's largest provider of guaranteed loans, granted $6.8 billion in student loans during the first half of 2003 ? compared to $5.6 billion in loans issued during the same period in 2002.

To offset budget cuts, Kansas is in the second year of a plan that will see tuition rise by $600 annually over five years.

Provost David Shulenberger acknowledged that the increases ? 17.7 percent this year to $4,100 ? induced "sticker shock" for upper classmen who arrived as freshmen expecting to receive an undergraduate degree at a uniformly low tuition rate.

To continue dedicating 20 percent of its tuition revenue to providing assistance to qualified students, the school has eliminated more than 150 staff positions and has closed public access to a popular anthropology museum.

But no faculty jobs have been lost and, in fact, Kansas plans to use the increased revenue to hire more teachers while boosting the salaries of part-time student teaching assistants.

At many other schools, it's been harder to find good news.

It will be a long time, for instance, before music majors at the University of Central Florida in Orlando benefit from long-promised construction.

"When we're struggling just to have enough classrooms for the 42,000 students we're expecting this fall, building a concert hall and building practice facilities is not a high priority," said Keith Koons, acting chair of the UCF music department.

Some schools are trying out innovative ways to make themselves more attractive.

Miami University of Ohio is preparing for the 2004 introduction of a plan that will charge identical tuition to in-state and out-of-state students.

Director of Admissions Mike Mills said the school hopes the plan will bring in more out-of-state students who have been considering expensive private schools. Residential scholarships of up to $10,000 annually will keep the school affordable for in-state students, he added.

The five-year plan at the University of Kansas will cap in-state tuition at $5,900 in 2006, aiming to give future students the promise of an education at a relatively low price.

But that won't help Fox.

"I think it's pretty unfair," he said as he filled out applications at the job fair. "I came here thinking it would be pretty affordable and pretty flat as far as tuition. But that hasn't been the case."

GIJOE; //AMERICA IF IT DOES HATE ANY SPECIAL GROUP IT IS THE BIGGOTS THE HATERS IN BOW TIES THE RED NECKS, THEY ARE ALL THE SAME, THEIR IS VERY little DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A RED NECK AND FOLLOWER OF FARRAHAKAN, THEY MAY NOT REALIZE IT BUT THEY ARE RELATED IN THEIR HATRED... LIKE CANCER, THESE GROUPS ARE BEING ELIMINATED ONE BY ONE.... //

SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO'S LEADERS LAUNCH A 'DIPLOMATIC OFFENSIVE'...
Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic and his Montenegrin counterpart, Milo Djukanovic, told the joint state's diplomats accredited in European countries in Belgrade on 23 August that the time has come to launch a "diplomatic offensive" to change Serbia and Montenegro's image abroad;,
...AND PRESENT THEIR COUNTRY AS THE 'MOST STABLE PARTNER' OF THE U.S. http://www.rferl.org...sline/4-see.asp

<To make intelectual arguments about polital systems and various movements is like pissing in the wind around here.>

George of the Jungle asks, "Why bother with Rule of Law when you can play by Jungle Law?":confused:

Bush Doctrine: Hegemony Claim or Jungle Law

Professor of politics at La Probe University Robert Anne criticized Monday the Bush Doctrine as hegemony claims or jungle law.

The professor published on The Sydney Morning Herald an article titled "Kill first, ask questions later," in which he said the new idea of the pre-emptive strike in reality is a strategy not of pre-emptive strike but of preventive war because the Bush doctrine proposes military action against "rogue states" when no threat to the United States is imminent.

"For a preventive war to be launched, a state needs only imagine itself to be under threat. With such an idea, the line between self-defense and aggression becomes hopelessly blurred," he said.

The professor analyzed, "The danger of this conflation of pre-emptive strike and preventive war is aggravated precisely by the fact that the Bush doctrine makes it clear that the United States reserves to itself the right to strike unilaterally, without mandate from the established processes of the United Nations. Under the new doctrine, then, the United States may not only go to war on the basis of an imagined threat. It also arrogates to itself the right to decide alone when such a threat exists."

"At the center of the doctrine, a huge conceptual hole appears.Does the United States, as the world hegemony, alone possess the sovereign right to act unilaterally against a supposed threat to its security by prosecuting a preventive war, or does an identical right exist for other states?" he asked and concluded "If the right does not exist for others, the Bush doctrine amounts to an almost formal claim to US world hegemony. If, on the other hand, all states possess the same right, the Bush doctrine opens the war to the return of the jungle, where the powerful have the capacity to impose their will."

(This is a story, written by 'Belrick,' which I polished up a little bit. I got to take insurance against copyright infringement...)

Mr Iraq was standing outside the playground looking in. He was allowed to join the other little boys playing as the sole big boy refused him entry.

The sad thing is that Mr Iraq had lots of good f'oil wrapped food to share and had even made promises to share it with the other boys. Except the big boy, Mr US.

So Mr US tells the other boys, "Look Mr Iraq has a stick in his back pocket! He's going to smack someone over with it!" "Where?" they cry, "I cant see it!"

"Never mind now; I'll show you later," cries Mr US.

So he promptly walks up behind the much smaller Mr Iraq and smacks him over and leans over the comatose body. Instead of standing up holding up the 'stick,' Mr US jumps joyously into the air holding Mr Iraq's f'oil wrapped food.

Now the other boys cry foul and when the teacher, Mrs UN, asked what happened, the boys were about to tell the truth. But before they could, Mr US bullies them and offers them some scraps. The other boys accept and back Mr US, and as far as Mrs UN is concerned Mr US was right in smacking over Mr Iraq.

A few quiet voices ask the whereabouts of the 'stick' that can't be found on Mr Iraq's body, but they were drowned out by the sound of content munching...

Professor of politics at La Probe University Robert Anne criticized Monday the Bush Doctrine as hegemony claims or jungle law//

I understand that Robert Anne criticized Bush Doctrine, but you--. don-t. I presume ....

I don't think Bush would vote for me, or for any of my ideas...

(You may see them at the original posting of this thread)

<Few days ago I believe you informed me about relativity of the truth. Don-t you ?>

I don't think so. To me the truth is the truth though you must admit different interpretations by competing interests. The problem lies with the lion imposing his interpretation--often using the lie--on the rest of the little animals. Say for example, for the King of the Jungle, competition (capitalism) is the best system while for the little animals, cooperation (the coops) is the best answer.

Which is right? It may depend on *who* you are... Of course if anything it should be the little animals imposing their will on the lion, but if you deny it you may find the lion already plotting against you. So we have to *agree to disagree*.

<Could you again explain me about truth ?>

'Satyagraha' was a word coined by Gandhi for 'the way of the truth,' which leads to nonviolence. I see the truth as a search, and not certainly as a denial, which should give you a clue as to who's right and who's wrong.

You can write all the links to different information for all of us to read, and continue making clever retorts, however and that a very large HOWEVER. Where is the answers to the questions about the vile deeds of the World wide Islamic Jihad movement.
And why is it that from you we never hear any type of admission of guilt about the terror groups hammas included from you and your ilk....

WE AMERICANS WANT OUR TROOPS HOME, AFTER THEY HAVE PUT OUT ALL THE FIRES IN THE REGION FIRST. INCLUDING THE FIRES OF HATRED AND HOLY WAR AGAINST THE U K AND THE U S A THAT ARE STILL BURNING IN THE HEARTS OF THE MALINFORMED, THE TWISTED FREAKS LIKE YOURSELF, AND THE LIKES OF SO MANY ON THIS CHAT LINE. Is there and echo in your cave, i know it must me dark and damp, and this can cause even more dementia over a period of time.

<You can write all the links to different information for all of us to read, and continue making clever retorts, however and that a very large HOWEVER. Where is the answers to the questions about the vile deeds of the World wide Islamic Jihad movement.
And why is it that from you we never hear any type of admission of guilt about the terror groups hammas included from you and your ilk....>

My dear stick bearer, if you had analyzed the stories about life in the jungle--which may be just around the corner from where you live--you'd have seen we don't approve terrorism or any other kind of violence. Violence is based on the 'lie' and lie must be 'exposed' and 'corrected' if we are to survive. Don't you have psychologists and all kinds of professionals in conflict resolution?Don't you have diplomacy? Why just use the stick first? Are you not putting all the little people at risk because of it? Don't you claim to have been chosen by God that taught 'turning the other cheek'?

< WE AMERICANS WANT OUR TROOPS HOME, AFTER THEY HAVE PUT OUT ALL THE FIRES IN THE REGION FIRST.>

There's a lot of fires in this world and hope you ain't fanning some of them by using the stick.

< INCLUDING THE FIRES OF HATRED AND HOLY WAR AGAINST THE U K AND THE U S A THAT ARE STILL BURNING IN THE HEARTS OF THE MALINFORMED, THE TWISTED FREAKS LIKE YOURSELF, AND THE LIKES OF SO MANY ON THIS CHAT LINE. Is there and echo in your cave, i know it must me dark and damp, and this can cause even more dementia over a period of time.>

The peoples of these United States, the UK, Europe, the Islamic world and the rest of the world don't just want to die because of some holy war--and there are two sides to it everytime you repeat "God Bless America." Just as they don't want to die over big business, politics and power trips. We all want freedom; we all deserve to live!

I stick to this...

'Would it not make more sense to bring all the nations together that are victims of this world-wide industrial revolution with its concomitant abuses inflicted on the poor of the world to stand against the trans-nationals? Why after three major industrial revolutions in England, Europe, and America do we stand by and let the trans-nationals tell us that these ?underdeveloped

I know the Lion's account looks rosy. But it seems the jungle ain't so pretty from the little animals' perspective. I guess all they see is the dark big mouth of the lion...

book 'Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America'by Barbara Ehrenreich

Editorial ReviewsAmazon.com's Best of 2001Essayist and cultural critic Barbara Ehrenreich has always specialized in turning received wisdom on its head with intelligence, clarity, and verve. With some 12 million women being pushed into the labor market by welfare reform, she decided to do some good old-fashioned journalism and find out just how they were going to survive on the wages of the unskilled--at $6 to $7 an hour, only half of what is considered a living wage. So she did what millions of Americans do, she looked for a job and a place to live, worked that job, and tried to make ends meet. As a waitress in Florida, where her name is suddenly transposed to "girl," trailer trash becomes a demographic category to aspire to with rent at $675 per month. In Maine, where she ends up working as both a cleaning woman and a nursing home assistant, she must first fill out endless pre-employment tests with trick questions such as "Some people work better when they're a little bit high." In Minnesota, she works at Wal-Mart under the repressive surveillance of men and women whose job it is to monitor her behavior for signs of sloth, theft, drug abuse, or worse. She even gets to experience the humiliation of the urine test.

So, do the poor have survival strategies unknown to the middle class? And did Ehrenreich feel the "bracing psychological effects of getting out of the house, as promised by the wonks who brought us welfare reform?" Nah. Even in her best-case scenario, with all the advantages of education, health, a car, and money for first month's rent, she has to work two jobs, seven days a week, and still almost winds up in a shelter. As Ehrenreich points out with her potent combination of humor and outrage, the laws of supply and demand have been reversed. Rental prices skyrocket, but wages never rise. Rather, jobs are so cheap as measured by the pay that workers are encouraged to take as many as they can. Behind those trademark Wal-Mart vests, it turns out, are the borderline homeless. With her characteristic wry wit and her unabashedly liberal bent, Ehrenreich brings the invisible poor out of hiding and, in the process, the world they inhabit--where civil liberties are often ignored and hard work fails to live up to its reputation as the ticket out of poverty. --Lesley Reed

Reviewer: Robert J.Niemi (see more about me) from Burlington, VT USA America's culture industry is dominated by educated, relatively affluent folks (mostly Rightist or Centrist politically) who blithely assume that everyone shares their advantaged lifestyle and smug worldview. Ignored by the corporate media, the millions of Americans who toil at minimum wage jobs are largely absent from the nation's public consciousness. Indeed, the status quo depends on cultural amnesia and wholesale denial of America's obscenely skewed class structure in order to maintain itself. That's why a book like Barbara Ehrenreich's NICKLE AND DIMED is so incredibly important. Ehrenreich offers her readers a glimpse of what life is like at the bottom of the socio-economic heap. It's not a pretty picture down there: physically punishing, mind-numbing, soul-destroying work at peon wages under authoritarian management--that's the reality of life for a large segment of the population. When all the self-congratulatory capitalist cheerleading is shoved aside, what we have here is widespread wage slavery. True, Ehrenreich's sojourn amongst the proletariat was brief and, therefore, somewhat dilletantish but at least she tried to get a clue. Can you picture a right-wing pundit like Bret Hume or George Will or Mona Charen having the ethical stamina and intellectual curiosity to examine the lives of the U.S. underclass? Never happen, sir.

Reviewer: SNF from New Jersey

(snip)

The true thrill of this book is not the exciting conclusion that Ehrenreich draws from her experiences as a member of the lower class, but her experiences along the way. Ehrenreich learned of the many injustices that plague these overlooked workers. She proves that no job is truly unskilled, and the "working poor" are as diligent as an executive or a journalist. However, it seems that no matter how hard they work they still seem to find themselves moving toward homelessness or worse. Their wages remain outrageously low, while their rent and expenses continue to rise astronomically. Through this passionately written book, Ehrenreich tries to give an inside perspective into the challenges that millions of Americans face everyday, but that many of us may never experience. She gains an edge over any Academic, Economist, or Social Scientist through her personal approach. Actual accounts of people's lives give a private touch that draws us into the book. She writes in detail about full-time employees who cannot afford housing and are forced to sleep in their cars thus refuting the theory that a full time job assures the basic necessities of life. She addresses the invisibility of the poor to those living in the upper-middle class or as she terms, the "other half" (217). She tackles the economics of the lower working class and gives insight into the never ending cycle of poverty. In a clear-cut style all her own, Ehrenreich confidently takes on these issues and addresses other potent subjects like the "living wage." She fits the "working poor" into the national economy and culture by deducing that the "working poor are the major philanthropists of our society." It is a masterfully written, humorous, and irate account of lower working-class America. Recommended to anyone who has ever had a job.

It's not just the economic gulf that exists in America that will shock you; it's also the way that Corporate America manipulates and belittles their employees and potential employees through creepy personality tests, drug tests and orientations seminars, which are really little more than illegal brainwashing. Ehrenreich also shows the remarkable lack of "choices" that low paid workers have and that getting access to some kind of government assistance, be it food stamps, emergency money etc., getting this access can be fraught with topographical and bureaucratic problems, for example, she has problems getting help in Maine when she really needs it.

(snip)

Ehrenreich also stresses the importance of unionism, and that although unions aren't perfect; they are still the only protection that exists between workers and managers. Her time retailing shows the startling disempowerment and non-unionist attitude that many young employees have.